About As:

In 1937, a group of Christians got together and established a congregation of the Presbyterian Church called Beach Community Church and then in parenthesis and small letters "presbyterian."  A couple of years later, after calling a Presbyterian Minister as its first Pastor, the session called a congregational meeting for the purpose of changing the name of the church to Beach Presbyterian Church.  Although we do not have the minutes of that meeting, someone must have risen to offer a substitute motion.  It might have gone like this.

"Mr. Moderator, I rise to offer a substitute motion, and if I get a second, I wish to speak to the motion.  I move that we change the name of our church to Community Presbyterian Church."  After the second, he may have added something like, "friends, the thing that makes this family of faith unique is not that we are at the beach.  The thing that makes us most distinctive is that we are a community of faith, and I believe that the word community is more descriptive of our life together than the word beach."

Over the years, what we have been learning together is that there is power in community.  Jesus knew that.  That is why he called disciples.  That is why he told them to "go into the world and make disciples."

But why a community?  Early on, quite a few folks decided that the best way to profit from a Jesus experience was to retire to the desert, read scripture, pray a lot, and know that you were doing the work of God.  Prayer was the work and it was viewed as a significant contribution to the good of humankind.  Why not be a hermit?  Why would an emphasis on community be important?

Is it possible to be a pious particle?  Someone once observed that you cannot keep a bee, you can only keep bees!  If you have a single bee, place him/her in a great greenhouse, and provide pollen laden flowers and the other things necessary to sustain bee life ? the bee will die without the hive.  You cannot keep a bee, you can only keep bees!

So what is the power here?  You can feel it.  You can hear it in conversations.  You can overhear it if you listen to the Sunday School classes as they dismiss.  You can see it in the interaction between adults and children ? not necessarily parent and child.  This is a community and they are ALL OUR CHILDREN.  And when they SING!  When they sing ? "I am a promise, I am a possibility, I am a promise, with a capital P."  You realize, this is a community with a promise ? with promise.  In fact, all the promises of God are available here at Community Presbyterian Church.